HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

Cover Legend: Echinidea: Igelsterne (Echinodermata: Echinoidea); Plate 30 from "Kunstformen der Natur" (1904). Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was the German scientist who coined the phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and the terms "Darwinism" and "ecology." He was also an accomplished artist. This plate, showing images of symmetry shared by echinoderms and the human brain, illustrates the life cycle of sea urchins from larva to adult. The two month-old urchin stage, center, with its long, symmetrical, kinetic projections is only a millimeter long. Haeckel's detailed depiction of the intricate forms and of the kinetics of cell division is a credit to advances in design of the microscope, especially the apochromatic lens system, developed in 1868 by Ernst Abbe, Haeckel's colleague at Jena. The Darwin papers contain a letter to Haeckel and Abbe, thanking them for a microscope they sent for the use of Darwin's son, Francis. Charles Darwin at Jena with Haeckel (http://darwin.lib.cam.ac.uk/perl/nav?pclass=calent;pkey=13219). (From an exhibition at the MBLWHOI library, curated by Ann Weissmann http://www.mblwhoilibrary.org/haeckel)